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Update on machine pistols Stabber, Strife, and Shadow Termite: they've seen their first real action, and have prevailed!

I sent Nicole, Ramos, and Satsuki (the senior; she slowed the party down with her bad back, but brought the formidable Shadow Termite to the table to compensate) on a daring 10 day winter mission to retrieve a bionic eye.
Ramos' wife Klara was meanwhile forced to deal with a surprise plague outbreak whilst holding the fort. Nails (our Grandmaster Greenthumb) survived in a down-to-the-wire immunity development crisis, but our pirate prisoner perished and was buried as our raiding party found victory and snatched the prize.

I'll confess I did completely botch my tactics in the raid and save-scummed.

But it was still a thrilling victory: the defenses boasted a perimeter of 4 solar powered turrets on three different grids, a mortar & EMP grenade wielding operator with limited incendiary ammo, and a soldier with an assault rifle. On my first try, I foolishly played to the rifle's strengths: he gunned down our unarmoured heroes from range as they huddled, pinned and hurt from turret fire, in tree and brush cover. On the second try, the soldier was lured into a brutal close range ambush around a large rock outcrop and then, after fighting through a forest fire set off by the otherwise ineffectual mortar rounds, the team flanked the turrets and neutralized them by targeting their batteries. Nicole & Ramos were hurt in the short firefight with the soldier, but not bad. The team had packed medicine and Nicole performed admirably as a field medic. My one regret is that I neglected to honour the two enemy casualties with a burial.

Foxy Nicole has persisted in attempts to seduce Ramos, but so far, and much to Nicole's chagrin, he remains faithful to his pretty wife.
Well.. so much for his faithfulness. He divorced her in spectacularly dickish style: publicly shaming her at a party, and then later hooking up with Nails.
That misogynist jerk! But an excellent militiaman, gunsmith and tailor.

4 for Ramos
This work resembles Arkady Ramos rejecting a hug from
Klara Peters as others look on. Peters is sobbing
uncontrollably. The scene takes place in the middle of an
encampment. The very dynamic structure of the image
almost conflicts with its blocky style. This depiction refers to
the breakup of Ramos and Peters on 12th of Decembary,
5505.

https://youtu.be/IPI2vUqdZFY Beta 18 - A World of Story -- it's officially here now. No surprises.
My above ramblings should be interpreted as an enthusiastic endorsement of the update. Especially banishment, DF-ish combat logs, and significant iteration on the psychology system.

Nevertheless, a chip on my shoulder remains concerning the universal sterilization of colonists and the continued, conspicuous lack of child-rearing in the game (a mod is in development -- I am not appeased ).

Ah, so there aren't kids? I was wondering why I never saw any kids. That explains it. I did buy this recently, though! Finally gave up and gave in. Happy with the purchase. Still don't like the developers though.

As explained in his blogs in the past (I havent checked this one out) the lack of human children is purely gameplay related. A typical colony will last a few years, a point where age is mostly only an issue in that older characters tend to start with more skills and more disabilities.
The game was not, and is not, designed to last long enough that generations will pass.

Which I believe is entirely fair enough. Would you want your colonists to be able to get pregnant and then have to deal with infants, effectively removing them from the workforce for months if not years.
If they game was played at a scale of 1-4 dozen settlers, and over a time span of a hundred years, then yes, children would be a critical part of that.
But honestly, this is the simplest approach. That solves the most issues, with the fewest pain points.

Call me old-fashioned, but I consider it a sickening moral dissonance to allow affairs and marriage and yet completely disallow progeny.
This limitation also significantly hampers the impact of these in storytelling. That is, imo, a major pain point.

I won't deny that it is a complex problem, and that a satisfactorily robust implementation would be difficult to achieve.
But whether Tynan will concede it or not, I will insist that the lifespan of gameplay is less and less with each update constrained to 'only a few years worth per colony.'